Ten families affected by the Memorial Day tornadoes received long-awaited supplies today that will begin to make their houses feel like homes again.

Good360, a charitable organization based in Virginia, partnered with Manna Worldwide and local nonprofits, including St. Vincent de Paul and the Living City Project, almost immediately after 15 tornadoes tore through the Miami Valley. The Vandalia-based Axogen company had 20 employee volunteers out to distribute the home goods.

“Most of these families have not been able to stay in their original home,” said Tiffany Everett, senior director of disaster relief for Good360. “So they’ve been displaced to other communities. That’s a tough thing, especially if you have children or elderly. So them knowing that today was going to be the day that they got their furniture and these amazing volunteers from Axogen came, it was really impactful.”

20 volunteers from the Vandalia-based Axogen company helped deliver home goods to tornado victims on Tuesday.

Photo: Sarah Franks

The mission of Good360 is to help companies such as Amazon donate excess and seasonal merchandise instead of destroying it. In addition to aiding in the local tornado recovery, Good360 is involved in helping victims of the Flint Water Crisis, flooded communities and is still helping the victims of Hurricane Katrina. Long-term recovery is the organization’s priority.

“What we find is about 70% of donations both cash and any kind happen within the first two months. And only 5% of those are dedicated toward long-term recovery. There’s no disaster that recovers in two months,” Everett said.

As four months since the tornadoes approaches, Everett said Good360 is trying to emphasize to companies that the most important part of recovery is staying engaged with victims long after the emergency phase is over.

Part of the “smarter” long-term recovery strategy Good360 said community organizers need to know is that there are national organizations like Good360 who care and want to be the supply chain to local nonprofits.

“We want to encourage them (victims) to have hope,” Everett said. “Know that we have organizations nationally that are thinking about you, we are doing this work day in and day out to make sure that you’re not forgotten.”

Thank you for reading the Dayton Daily News and for supporting local journalism. Subscribers: log in for access to your daily ePaper and premium newsletters.

Thank you for supporting in-depth local journalism with your subscription to the Dayton Daily News. Get more news when you want it with email newsletters just for subscribers. Sign up here.